Hot August days on a ranch are the quieter times when Ryan Carpenter and his wife are able to halter break new colts in between bailing hay and other chores.
Their ranch is on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation, which sits on the border of Idaho and Nevada. It’s the same time of year they met their neighbor, Monte Cummins, more than 10 years ago.
Carpenter is a high school teacher, rancher and leather worker and for him, the three roles melt into each other and life is anything but compartmentalized. When he first moved to the area to take a job as an ag teacher, his instinct was to get involved with the community that revolved around ranching in the remote region.
According to Carpenter, if you ranch in a place like Duck Valley – so far from a store to buy equipment – you naturally learn to build your own.
“It’s funny how it’s all intertwined,” he said. “If I didn’t do this in my life, well then I wouldn’t have any reason to do this, and this, and this.”
Monte Cummins was just seven years old when he bumped into Carpenter’s wife in the fields while she was bucking hay. Cummins’ eager character made him a fast friend of the couple and soon he was stopping by their ranch regularly to spend time with them.
Now 17, Cummins wants to stay in Duck Valley – and he’s learning the skills to do so. In addition to school, he trains and cares for horses with Carpenter, works cows and sets aside time for the shop, where he’s learning to make the leather gear they use daily on the ranch.
This year, the Idaho Commission on the Arts awarded Cummins a grant to complete a leatherwork apprenticeship with Carpenter and deepen his knowledge of the craft.
The two routinely work the juvenile horses and then head to the shop in the afternoon. A key for both leatherwork and horse training is consistent practice.
“They’ve been getting saddled pretty much every day for the last couple of weeks,” Carpenter said of the two- and three-year-old horses. “We’re just trying to keep it to where it’s more matter of fact to them and they really don’t mind it.”
Carpenter and Cummins believe the leather equipment they make is better because they actually have to use it and depend on its functionality. The feedback loop between making the gear and using it helps them hone in on what actually works.
“The saddle that I put on, I built for myself last year,” Carpenter said. “For the most part, everything that we use, we build.”
Cummins, a tribal member who’s been taught many native traditions by his father, carries an ethic of learning old ways of life.
Cummins lives with and cares for his grandmother, who he’s often helping.
"I’ve kind of grown in the lifestyle of it,” Cummins said. “I only wasn’t wanting to do hunting and fishing when I was younger – I was always wanting to be on horse somewhere.”
Carpenter admires the boy’s dedication to learning and spending time with elders.
“One of the biggest things that I saw with Monte was he was committed to being here every day,” he said. “He’d show up, we’d work, we’d ride horses and we’d go in the shop and work on some stuff. He was committed to continually working on stuff.”
In the shop, Cummins works on an ongoing project – building headstalls for horses. He’s already cut them out, glued liner pieces on and sewed them together.
Now he’s trimming the excess liner, smoothing the edges and shaping them with an English punch, all while Carpenter observes and offers critique and encouragement.
“One of the things that doing headstalls really makes you learn how to do is sew straight and cut straight,” Carpenter explained. “So like on those edges, trimming that liner, it’s not an easy job … and he’s doing a really good job.”
Each small skill gained feeds into the larger picture and the knowledge needed to build more complex pieces like saddles – a project that’s a long way off for Cummins. For now, he’s focusing on doing the smaller tasks well to build a base of skills.
And while many buckaroos love the tooled leather decoration, shiny conchos and intricately braided horse hair of western apparel and gear, Carpenter wants his student to focus on what works before dressing up the pieces.
“Everyone wants their stuff to look nice and look pretty, but really, truly, functionality needs to come first,” he said. “I try to use the very best materials that I can and what seems to hold up and work the best.”
Next, the pair hunches over a large drill press in the corner of the shop. Cummins operates the drill as Carpenter watches closely and coos praise.
For Cummins, the apprenticeship isn’t the beginning, but a continuation of a long relationship between teacher and student that’s growing into a partnership.
“What I like about being in the workshop is all the tools and stuff you’re getting to use and you have time for yourself, and time to work with your partners in there, especially if they need help in there, you could learn things off of each other all the time, no matter what it is,” he said.
In a remote place like Duck Valley, the connection of a friendship is enjoyed and valued as much as the solitude. Subject to constantly changing prices, uncontrollable elements like weather and an aging population without a lot of new blood, the cattle business is one of the riskier trades to enter.
“If you don’t know where you came from, then it’s kind of hard to figure out where you’re going,” Carpenter said. “If we don’t maintain a lot of these traditions, they will go away.”
The people of the reservation are trying to hang on to ways of life that are a distant memory in more populated parts of Idaho.
“And I don’t really care if it’s a native tradition or if it’s like leather work and saddle making, that kind of thing, if we don’t maintain those and we don’t pass those on, then they’ll be lost,” said Carpenter.
As much as Carpenter and Cummins value the industry, they love the lifestyle that’s so in touch with the land, nature and the seasons.
“I believe it’s important to keep it,” Cummins said. “Keep the cycle, because then it could just repeat, repeat, whoever you teach.”
This piece was produced for Expressive Idaho in partnership with the Idaho Commission on the Arts’ Folk and Traditional Arts Program, with funding support from the National Endowment for the Arts and Suzanne Allen.
